• 
• 

Published on July 22, 2007

"The fact-finding panel is expected to clear all doubts by Monday [tomorrow], otherwise the EC may not have the ballots ready for the August 19 referendum," she said.

The EC had instructed its staff to open bidding in May, but the two qualified printers were short-listed only last week.

"That smacks of using time constraints to force the EC to choose between just those printers," she said.

The two printers' quotes were also lower than when they jointly won last year's contract to print ballots for the April 2 vote, and one of them was a partnership involving a former election commissioner, she added.